Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/66

 active cause of disease, and by renewing, through rest, the functions of those organs that have been long hampered in operation.

The most important of the organs connected with the digestive process is the liver. It stands at the portal of the circulation of the blood like a faithful sentry. It receives digested food products, as they are absorbed through the walls of the intestines, and it separates that which may be used for the rebuilding of tissue from that which is waste. Its products are thus, on the one hand, blood filled with nutriment, and, on the other, the peculiar secretion known as bile. The latter it stores in the gall bladder, whence it is supplied to the intestines as needed in the digestion of food. Nature is loath to cast out any material as useless, and the function of the liver by which constituents of the blood, otherwise useless, are utilized for further digestive operation in the form of bile, is one of the most striking instances of her economy.

When overworked by overfeeding or other abuse, the liver cannot perform its function of inspection successfully, and more or less of the poison retained, absorbed from fermenting refuse in the intestines, is carried